Scott Morrison confronted on ‘mistakes’ as Prime Minister, asked whether he’ll apologise

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been asked directly whether he “wants to apologise” to Australians for his “mistakes”.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison was directly asked whether he would apologise to Australians for his mistakes during his appearance at the National Press Club on Wednesday.

In his address, Mr Morrison acknowledged the “frustration” of Australians after a “very difficult summer”, and acknowledged he hadn’t got “everything right”.

ABC journalist Laura Tingle, asking the first question of the afternoon, drilled down on that admission and sought an apology.

“Thank you, Prime Minister, for that very extensive address,” Tingle said.

“It’s a new year. So, a good opportunity to clear the air. You’ve acknowledged today you didn’t get everything right. And that you understand the frustration people have felt over the summer. But do you want to take this opportunity to actually say sorry for the mistakes you have made as Prime Minister?

“Not just about Covid. Everything from going to Hawaii during the bushfires through to not having enough rapid antigen tests in place, even as you foreshadowed the switch to a greater use of them, and for failing to live up to your pledge to hundreds of thousands of people on the NDIS that you would make sure the scheme was fully funded, uncapped and demand driven? Will you apologise to people who’ve had funding arbitrarily cut under the scheme?”

Mr Morrison listened to most of the question with his head down, turning back towards Tingle when she finished.

“Well, thanks for the question,” he told her.

“Always happy to ask you questions, Prime Minister,” she replied after a brief pause.

Some possible subtext: yesterday The Australian reported that Mr Morrison had decided to do a “blitz” of ABC interviews, which would see him speak to Leigh Sales, David Spears, Sabra Lane and Patricia Karvelas.

It reported Tingle – who has publicly called out the PM for refusing her interview requests in recent months – was not on the list.

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Scott Morrison listens to Laura Tingle’s question. Picture: ABC

The Prime Minister proceeded to give a lengthy answer.

“We’re all terribly sorry for what this pandemic has done to the world and to this country. These are the times in which we live,” Mr Morrison said.

“But I’m very proud of Australians, and what they’ve achieved in enabling us all to come through this despite the setbacks and the challenges that we have faced.

“In terms of the things – when I say we haven’t got everything right – let me reflect on a couple of them for you. First of all, as we went into this summer, we were optimistic. I was optimistic. We were all desperately looking forward to a great summer.

“And one of the things we learnt, again, is that the virus has a way of bringing you back to earth. And I don’t think, as we went into the summer – I think we were too optimistic, perhaps. And we could have communicated more clearly about the risks and challenges that we still faced. And I think in raising those expectations about the summer, that we heightened the great sense of disappointment that people felt.

“We had to make massive changes because of Omicron. The rapid antigen tests had only actually been approved for use by the TGA (Therapeutic Goods Administration) earlier in November. We’d agreed at a meeting of the national cabinet about how they’d be funded and who had to go and get them.

“And so we moved quickly, because we hadn’t anticipated that we would have a variant that resulted in the vaccine not being able to stop the transmission. We had invested so much, and Australians had invested so much, in getting those vaccinations. Over November and December, we were focused on the booster program, the children’s program and, at the same time, Omicron came and completely turned things on its head.

“So we moved quickly, and I’ve set out the steps that we've taken to work that around. In our communications, we have to be clear about that. We can’t lift people’s hopes, then disappoint them. I think that’s what happened over the break.”

Next, Mr Morrison identified a regret from the rollout of the vaccines.

“If I had my time over, I would have put it under a military operation from the outset, and not later in the year,” he explained.

“We’d had the goal of ensuring that everyone who wanted a vaccine could be offered one by October – for the record, that was achieved on October 25 – and as we went through those early months and we had the challenges that we had with the Health Department and us dealing with many, many issues, I took the decision to send in General (John) Frewen and change the way we did it, and set up a change in the command structure, how logistics were managed, how it was planned.

“And it worked. But I wish we’d done that earlier. And that’s a lesson.”

Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

Mr Morrison next turned to the aged care sector.

“We learnt that the interface between the aged care sector and the public hospital system was blurred. And so, when the storm of Covid hit, that created some real challenges.

“That could have been done better, between both the states and ourselves.”

At this point he started to wrap up his answer.

“But as you can see, these are not simple issues with simple solutions. They're complex. And events can work against you,” said the Prime Minister.

“But what I say to Australians on every occasion where something hasn’t gone exactly as we’d hoped for, or we’ve (not) got it exactly right or the way we would have liked it to have turned out – we’ve come together, solved it, and moved forward.

“And that’s what Australians expect of us. I don’t think they expect perfection. But they do expect you to keep working on it every single day. And that’s something I’m very proud my government has done.”

A lot of words there, but no direct apology among them.

“So you don’t have to say sorry about any of those things?” Tingle followed up.

“I think I’ve explained my answer fairly fully,” Mr Morrison replied.

Originally published as Scott Morrison confronted on ‘mistakes’ as Prime Minister, asked whether he’ll apologise